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Sideloading is very possible on iOS and there's an entire subculture surrounding it.
by LocalH 6mo ago
Sideloading is very possible on iOS and there's an entire subculture surrounding it.
- fluidcruft 6mo agoNot widespread enough to be a viable grift target.
- goku12 6mo agoAnd how much grift happens through Android side loading? (BTW, I hate that weasel word used to vilify a perfectly reasonable activity.) Practically all grift on Android happens through apps on the Play Store. People who know how to 'side load' are also usually careful and smart enough to think about what they're putting in. That's not a useful target for grifts either. As somebody put it, Google goes after others without cleaning their own house first. It's just abuse of power at this point.
- fluidcruft 6mo agoApparently it's widespread in Asia and South America.
- fsflover 6mo agoAre Debian repos a viable grift target?
- fluidcruft 6mo agoWhat does that have to do with Android and iOS?
- fsflover 6mo agoFree software protects from malware, not walled gardens.
- fluidcruft 6mo agoIf you don't want Play Store, don't use it?
- fsflover 6mo ago"Google is slowly removing such option "for your safety", and "hackers" on this website really believe them.
- fluidcruft 6mo agoYou can still install any ROM you want. Not having Play Store has some downsides, but those trades offs should be familiar to a free software enthusiast.
- fsflover 6mo agoYou can only do this on a tiny number of devices supporting free drivers (and mainline kernel), otherwise you are tied to an ancient Linux kernel. I'm using Librem 5 btw and don't believe that Android, whose development completely depends on Google, is a viable long-term solution.
- izacus 6mo agoThey absolutely are and that's why they're tightly curated by maintainers.
- MarsIronPI 6mo agoExactly like... you guessed it... F-Droid. Not Google Play.
- izacus 6mo agoFDroid has 0.2% of app volume of Play Store. Don't mistake obscurity for security. FDroid isn't the size to even be noticed by problems that Play Store and AppStore are dealing with.
- fsflover 6mo agoThis is exactly why I gave the example of Debian repos.
- izacus 6mo agoWhich again work on a model of a single entity having all the curation power.
- fsflover 6mo agoMy point is that Google does not want to protect users by restricting "side loading". If they actually wanted that, they would remove all the malware in their store. They are just building higher walls in the walled garden to lock you in.
- MarsIronPI 6mo agoRight, but the Debian Developers don't prevent you from installing (installing, not "sideloading") other programs. If you want to install malware you're free to, but they don't distribute it.
- 6mo ago